3 min readNov 7, 2024 10:31 PM IST
First published on: Nov 5, 2024 at 07:38 AM IST
Can you salvage your heart from the damage done by years of smoking by giving up the habit now? A South Korean study shows that light smokers, who took a cumulative hit of the ill-effects of smoking for years before deciding to give up, took another five to ten years for their heart to resemble that of a non-smoker. Heavy smokers took up to 25 years to heal their heart after quitting smoking.
The study, which was published in JAMA Network, tracked 5.8 million people in South Korea to understand how long the heart takes to heal after a person stops smoking. It set eight pack years (a pack year is calculated by the number of packs of cigarettes smoked by a person everyday multiplied by the number of years smoked) as the median that separated light smokers from heavy smokers.
WHY IS THIS STUDY SIGNIFICANT?
It tells us why we need to quit smoking rather early in life. According to Dr Ambuj Roy, professor of cardiology at AIIMS, Delhi, “The results show that the effects of smoking linger in your body for a long time after you give it up and still expose you to a risk of heart attacks. This is in tune with what has been observed and studied in the past. The residual effects of smoking are just as risky till the body gets rid of them.”
WHAT DOES SMOKING DO TO THE HEART?
Smoking is known to trigger body inflammation, which can lead to plaque build-up in your arteries. “Smoking can damage blood vessel walls, constricting them. It raises your heart rate and blood pressure, stressing your heart out in the process. Smoking can lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol and raise your low density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol along with triglycerides, which are a type of fat in your blood. Smoking can thicken your blood, creating conditions for a heart attack,” says Dr Balbir Singh, Cardiac Sciences, Cardiology, Max Hospital, Saket, New Delhi.
WHY DOES THE HEART TAKE LONG TO REPAIR SMOKING-INDUCED DAMAGE?
First and foremost, when you stop smoking, the blood rids itself of nicotine and carbon monoxide and gets oxygenated better, reaching your heart and muscles more easily. “You may take a couple of months or more for the lungs to heal, remove mucus, tar and dust and tend to feel short of breath or wheezing,” says Dr Singh. This usually settles within a year and you can feel yourself breathing easy. “It takes almost five years for the heart to experience the benefits of quitting smoking,” adds Dr Singh.
However, during this phase of neutralising the body, people need to take care of other co-morbidities. “The former smokers must eat right, avoid preventable risk factors like obesity, keep the blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels down, says Dr Roy. “This is the only way to lower the cumulative risk score for cardiovascular diseases,” he adds.
When you stop smoking, the blood rids itself of nicotine and carbon monoxide and gets oxygenated better, reaching your heart and muscles more easily. (Representative image) 
Share
